BERLIN (AP) — Europeans were jumping into public fountains and the sea on Wednesday to keep cool as parts of Europe were bracing for a record-breaking heat wave.
Paris and other parts of France could see temperatures exceeding 104 F on Thursday along with Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg and Switzerland.
The heat is putting pressure on authorities to help protect the elderly and the sick. Air conditioning is not common at homes, offices, schools or hospitals in European cities.
The weather is also aggravating droughts since it hasn't rained much in many parts of Europe this summer. The combination of heat, wind and possible lightning from thunderstorms also increases the risk of wildfires such as those blazing in Portugal, according to the World Meteorological Organization.
WHY IS IT SO HOT?
The second likely-to-be-record-breaking heat wave in two months in Europe includes some of the same ingredients of the first — hot dry air coming from northern Africa. That hot air is trapped between cold stormy systems in the Atlantic and eastern Europe and forms "a little heat dome," said Ryan Maue, a private meteorologist in the U.S.
This heat wave is a relatively short event where the heat comes with a southerly wind — and dust — from Africa's Sahara Desert, in contrast to the big European heat waves of 2003 and 2010 which lasted much longer and were sustained by a stationary high pressure system with little wind, experts say.
At the end of June, several countries reported record temperatures, and France hit its all-time heat record: 114.8 F in the small southern town of Verargues.
IS CLIMATE CHANGE CAUSING THIS?
Heat waves are happening more frequently in large parts of Europe, Asia and Australia, experts say. As the world warms, scientists say there will be more and hotter heat waves, but attributing single events to climate change involves precise computer modeling and calculations.
A team of European climate scientists did a quick, non-peer reviewed analysis of Europe's June heat wave and found man-made warming made it at least five times more likely.
"Either of the two European heat waves this summer would have been remarkable in isolation. But now we are seeing multiple episodes of record heat in a given summer. By mid-century, we will simply call these episodes 'summer' — if we continue on this trajectory," said Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann, who wasn't part of the European group.
The heat waves aren't just because the world is 1 degree Celsius warmer than before the industrial era, but also because climate change and the melting of Arctic sea ice has slowed down the jet stream, which is the river of air that moves weather along, Mann said. The slow jet stream is "a big part of the story when it comes to these very persistent heat extremes we have seen in recent summers," Mann said in an email.